12 Making Ofs and Behind the Scenes Featurettes

Since I am not a Mac guy, I didn't have much to say last week, but this week I got a handful of juicy featurettes for you all to dive into and waste your Friday away. Get ready and strap in, were gonna see how some of the biggest blockbusters in the movie business are made.

Inspiration: 12 Making Of's and Behind the Scenes Featurettes

King Kong

Over at the official King Kong website, you can find the production diaries that are awesome to watch as the movie is planned, shot and post production is done. Peter Jackson and the Weta team really show you how this killer movie came to life. Gear up... there are a few hours worth of movies to watch.

The Spirit

This is actually one of the most unique movies I have seen in a while... well at least since Sin City, but it is pretty awesome. Stu Maschwitz and The Orphange tackled the VFX for this movie, and there was something like 1800 shots to be produced. Check out the exclusive on UGO.com!

Terminator Salvation

You might have caught this the first time around, but for those of you that don't have G4, you can watch the Terminator Salvation special they aired... on Youtube. It's kinda long, but well worth it since you get to see a lot of making of stuff.

District 9

There is so much hype right now on District 9, and the movie deserves it! This is an absolute must see for any visual effects fiend, and to get an inside look at some of the VFX check out this video by Vancouver Film School. It's kind of a promo video for them, but radical nonetheless.

300

By far one of my favorite movies ever, is 300, based on Frank Miller's graphic novel. I don't have to refresh your memory on what its about, because if you are looking at this site, and haven't seen the movie... turn off the computer and grab it off Netflix. Seriously. The link after the jump is to a featurette on Youtube, but if you look in the sidebar, there are a ton more making of's to check out as well.

Batman: The Dark Knight

Another one of the top movies last year, a british channel has this "Making the Movie" special that someone uploaded to Youtube. The link after the jump is to part one, but if you navigate to the sidebar you can find the other 5 parts no problem. There's an hour of your day gone!

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Wired has a nice write up of my personal favorite book and movie series of all time (get used to it, I'll mention it every chance I get), focusing on the fact of ILM tackling the VFX for the movie. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to find the mini-behind the scenes featurette with some interviews of cast members.

Coraline

Animation World Network has a cool little feature on the process of stop motion animation and how tedious and precise it actually is. I've never actually worked on a stop motion set, so seeing something like this really opened my eyes... and made me know to never accept a stop motion gig.

Watchmen

This particular video deals with the Rohrschach mask in the movie and how they actually animated and designed the moving patterns, or rather expressions, of the character in the movie. If that isn't enough for you, check out below the movie and you will find quite a few more episodes exploring the rest of the Watchmen world.

9

This really doesn't showcase how any of the VFX or animation were made for 9, but I am just super amped about this movie, as should you. The featurette takes you through who plays the characters, who they are, and the basics of the story at hand.

X-Games 3D: The Movie

Lots of awesome camera work being discussed in this movie, as well as some sick extreme sports. I have been skateboarding since I was eleven, so to see my favorite genre of sports and my love of cameras and production mashed into one super fantastic awesome 3D movie is kind of a dream come true.

Sin City

Another Youtube video that ripped a featurette off of the DVD, this one is going to take you through a little bit of pre production, some shooting, and a walkthrough of who the characters are. Make sure you check out the sidebar for some other cool random videos.

Topher Welsh is a post production artist working mainly in the fields of motion graphics and visual effects. He is a freelancer out of Tacoma, Washington, and also runs www.VisualFXtuts.com, which provides a daily fix of tutorials from any and all applications in the visual effects industry. His personal website is found here:
www.Toe-Fur.com.